Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/370

360, in the spring of 1855. He became proprietor of the Argus on April 16, 1859, retaining Mr. Adams as editor until October 24, 1863, at which time the Statesman, mainly owned by Bush and James W. Nesmith, the latter United States senator, and the Argus were consolidated, and the publication continued under the name of The Statesman, by an incorporation known as the Oregon Printing and Publishing Company, composed of J. W. P. Huntington, Benjamin Simpson, Rufus Mallory, Chester N. Terry, George H. Williams, and D. W. Craig, with Clark P. Crandall as editor. In time Craig acquired a majority of the stock, and in 1866 sold the paper to Benjamin Simpson, and his sons, Sylvester C. and Samuel L. Simpson, became the editors. Simpson afterwards sold to W. A. McPherson and William Morgan, the owners of the Unionist, and on December 31, 1866, it was merged into that paper, the name of the Statesman being dropped. Eighteen months later Huntington acquired control of the Unionist, and published the same up to the time of his death, in the spring of 1869, when the plant was bought at administrator's sale by S. A. Clarke, and the name The Statesman again adopted. In the merging of the Argus into the Statesman in 1863. an extra plant was acquired, most of which, aside from the press, was sold to an association of printers in Portland, who began publishing the Daily Union, with W. Lair Hill as editor. The press was acquired by H.R. Kincaid, who began publishing the State Journal, Eugene, in December, 1863; and in this office, to-day, may be found the original press of the Spectator, not much the worse for its almost constant use since February 5, 1846 fifty-six years. Thus may be seen the connection between the Spectator of February 5, 1846, with the Oregon Statesman of to-day.

Before taking up the story of the next paper, in chronological order, a few words may be said about the first